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Abstract

This paper builds on global experience
and Kenya’s specific context to identify an effective
approach to scaling up nutrition and provide an estimate of
costs and benefits of key nutrition interventions. It is
intended to help guide the selection of the most
cost-effective interventions as well as strategies for
scaling up a package of interventions tailored to Kenya’s
specific needs. The paper considers high-impact
nutrition-specific interventions that largely rely on
typical health sector delivery mechanisms. The authors
estimate that the costs and benefits of implementing 11
critical nutrition-specific interventions will require a
yearly public and donor investment of 76 million dollars.
The expected benefits will be substantial: annually more
than 455,000 disability adjusted life years (DALYs) will be
averted, over 5,000 lives saved, and more than almost
700,000 cases of stunting among children under five averted.
This investment will be very cost-effective with an
estimated cost per DALY averted of 207 dollars cost per life
saved of about 18,600 dollars and a cost per case of
stunting averted of 135 dollars. Economic productivity can
potentially increase by 458 million dollars over the
productive lives of beneficiaries. However, the authors also
calculate intermediate scale-up scenarios since it may not
be feasible for the Government of Kenya or its partners to
achieve full coverage in the near term. The authors compare
the costs and benefits associated with three different
scenarios: first, prioritizing counties, focusing the
investment on counties with a high burden of stunting;
second, prioritizing interventions, focusing on only a
subset of the most effective interventions; and third,
prioritizing both counties and interventions, delivering
only the most effective subset of interventions to
high-burden counties. The authors determined that the third
scenario is the most cost-effective and least costly.
Scaling up the most cost-effective interventions in 37
high-burden counties will avert almost 295,000 DALYs and
save over 3,000 lives per year for an annual public and
donor investment of 48 million dollars.